Star Wars: May the 4th be with you at DLP

[Stevie Amsterdam]

Hello friends!

I will be in Paris next week and managed to book a day at the castle park. Happens to be May 4th and I just learned about Star Wars: May the 4th be with you. Awesome

Any tips or advice are welcome. While I have been to DLP many times, my last visit was 7 years ago so any tips and advice, especially on Star Wars, are welcome. I'm also interested in places to eat inside the park, since I will only be there for just one day. I've read everything on premiere access and while I think it's a bit of a rip off, we will be using it if the crowds are insane.

Thanks in advance and let me know if you'll be there too.

P.s. shout out to my heroes @marni1971 and @fradz - always love reading your posts

 

[marni1971]

Hello friends!

I will be in Paris next week and managed to book a day at the castle park. Happens to be May 4th and I just learned about Star Wars: May the 4th be with you. Awesome

Any tips or advice are welcome. While I have been to DLP many times, my last visit was 7 years ago so any tips and advice, especially on Star Wars, are welcome. I'm also interested in places to eat inside the park, since I will only be there for just one day. I've read everything on premiere access and while I think it's a bit of a rip off, we will be using it if the crowds are insane.

Thanks in advance and let me know if you'll be there too.

P.s. shout out to my heroes @marni1971 and @fradz - always love reading your posts

For food it’s likely a lot of TSR will be full; you could always try a walk up or city hall when you arrive. Failing that the old technique of eating outside of usual times is probably the best bet if you don’t want to spend time going to the Village.

 

[fradz]

Thanks for the kind words!
Adding on top of Martin regarding food, on a very busy day, and if you want to be focused on efficiency, I found that having snacks then going a bit later on to Colonel Hathi for a 4cheese pizza will do the trick. Not going to be a gourmet experience but will keep you full to go throughout the day.

My top trick to go against the flows of crowds: Start at DLP until around lunchtime, go to WDS until you've done what you wanted to do (should then be around 16-17:00) then back to the main park.

Purely theoretical but I'd do something like that on a "Once in 7years & I want to do all the highlights" day:
Start at Discoveryland with Buzz, Space Mountain & Star Tours. While queuing for the last ride of the land, buy a Premier Access for Pan if queue >40min. After riding Pan, check queue times. If nothing that you'd want to do is <25min in DLP, then you should already go to WDS (and maybe eat in Disney Village then). If not, continue with the <25 min rides. As soon as you arrive to WDS, if you want to ride Crush, buy a Premier Access. Otherwise the line will be crazy.. For ToT, lines are generally not too bad (as long as they don't overflow the regular queue, this should be max 40min).

Regarding M&G, I really can't help you much on that, as I rarely queue for that :x

General guidelines:
- DON'T do Pirates before coming back from the mid-day expedition in WDS. It ALWAYS drops after around 17:00.
- Overall, the whole left side of the park is generally less busy when the sun starts to set.
- If you really intend to pay for Premier Access, Crush & Pan would be the most worth it. Many aren't worth it purely because of their merge points with standby (Space Mountain for example).
- For Rat, use the single rider, 3 ppl/row --> profit
- If you feel like queue times are about to trend downwards, use high capacity/low wait times attractions as a time buffer. Cars Road Trip in WDSP, Phantom Manor(IASW when open) in DLP.
- Fantasyland closes 1hour earlier than the rest (due to fireworks), make sure that you did everything you needed in time!

I could go on for much much more, let me know if you want more tips (& on what!)

 

[Stevie Amsterdam]

Thanks for the input gents! @fradz I will only visit the castle park this time so I should be fine. I'll rather wait till the WDSP expansion is finished in a few years and enjoy WDW and DLR till then.

 

[marni1971]

Being off work with long covid one of my therapy’s has been monitoring wait times on the app (!) - Discoveryland is the quieter land to begin with (like what @fradz says) and holds it’s wait times pretty much throughout the day. BTM holds its times pretty much all day too. PotC, PM and Indy do indeed drop off later in the day. Also remember the early closers like Molly, Railroad, Storybook Land and that Fantasyland closes for new admission an hour before IllumiNations. We found the wait times on the app pretty close to actual times during our last few trips too. And that ride recovery once down is usually relatively quick Unless it’s something major.

 

[Stevie Amsterdam]

Being off work with long covid one of my therapy’s has been monitoring wait times on the app (!) - Discoveryland is the quieter land to begin with (like what @fradz says) and holds it’s wait times pretty much throughout the day. BTM holds its times pretty much all day too. PotC, PM and Indy do indeed drop off later in the day. Also remember the early closers like Molly, Railroad, Storybook Land and that Fantasyland closes for new admission an hour before IllumiNations. We found the wait times on the app pretty close to actual times during our last few trips too. And that ride recovery once down is usually relatively quick Unless it’s something major.

I’m sorry to hear you’re suffering from long covid. Hope you feel a little better every day

I’m glad to hear that the posted wait times in the app are somewhat accurate. To be honest, I kind of expected Disney (under Chapek’s management) to inflate the wait times to boost P.A. sales.

 

[Robbiem]

Being off work with long covid one of my therapy’s has been monitoring wait times on the app (!) - Discoveryland is the quieter land to begin with (like what @fradz says) and holds it’s wait times pretty much throughout the day. BTM holds its times pretty much all day too. PotC, PM and Indy do indeed drop off later in the day. Also remember the early closers like Molly, Railroad, Storybook Land and that Fantasyland closes for new admission an hour before IllumiNations. We found the wait times on the app pretty close to actual times during our last few trips too. And that ride recovery once down is usually relatively quick Unless it’s something major.

Get well soon mate!